A/N: Hello again everybody. I hope you are enjoying the story so far. As always, reviews, suggestions, and comments are welcome.
"Wow! This city is so big!" Clair exclaimed. She ran ahead of us in excitement.
"A little over dramatic isn't she?" Misaki laughed.
"Weren't you the same at first?" I reminded her. "I remember several outbursts you made when we visited our first few cities."
"Good point." Misaki giggled.
Canalave City was a city unlike most of the ones in Sinnoh. It was split in two by a large waterway. The only way to get from one side to the other was by using the drawbridge located near the far end of the city.
We ran and caught up with Clair.
"So what do you think of the city, Clair?" I asked.
"It's so amazing! I can't believe you've been to so many places like this in PWO!" Clair exclaimed.
"I wonder why the waterway is there though?" Misaki said. "It must make traffic really crowded by the bridge."
"It's built that way because there's a port inside the city." I explained. "A ferry leaves there every hour to Iron Island."
"Iron Island?"
"It's a large island not far away from Canalave City. It's said to be a great training place."
"Then why don't we head over there before our gym battle?" Misaki suggested.
"Good idea." I agreed.
We got on the next ferry and headed for Iron Island. The island was pretty big. It was made up of interconnecting caves. It had no buildings on it except for a pokemon center near the port.
"Stay by my side, Clair." I told her. "The amount of hp people have in this game is very little, so don't go running off."
"Got it." Clair nodded.
Training went well. After about an hour, the level of our pokemon were in the early 40s. We eventually came across an empty room. At first, we thought it was just a dead end. However, upon closer inspection we saw an egg sitting on a stone in the center of the room. As we walked closer, a window popped up.
"Do you want to start the 'Aura Trainer' quest?" it read.
"You two up for it?" I asked, turning towards Misaki and Clair.
"Sure, why not?" Misaki replied. Clair nodded as well. I pressed the 'Yes' tab. Once I pressed it, the egg lit up. Cracks started forming and the egg hatched. It was a Riolu!
"Wow! Riolu are super rare!" Misaki exclaimed.
Riolu came running over to us. Even though it was just a level 1 pokemon that just hatched, I kept my guard up for any tricks. When it got within a few feet from us, a window popped up.
"Catch Riolu and evolve it." I read aloud. Training a Riolu in a cave of pokemon that were in the mid 30s wouldn't be easy. Suddenly I remembered something I had. I opened my item list and scrolled down until I reached it. An Exp Share.
"Why don't you catch it, Clair?" I suggested, handing her a spare pokeball I had. "You don't have any pokemon and Riolu might make a good partner for you."
Clair nodded and tossed the pokeball. After wobbling three times, it clicked.
"Alright! I got it!" Clair exclaimed.
We trained for a few hours. In that time, Riolu had gotten to lvl 30. With its type advantage, it could now handle most of the wild pokemon here on its own. Clair had gotten a lot more skilled at battling too. To evolve Riolu, a strong bond between it and its trainer was needed. Since the two had already become fairly close, it wouldn't be long now. Suddenly, my thinking was interrupted by a loud boom that shook the cave.
"What was that?!" Misaki exclaimed.
"Nothing good I bet." I said.
We ran into a large, open area of the cave, and it was filled with chaos. Hordes of players were running in the opposite direction of us. It was easy to see why. Team Reaper was all over the place. I didn't see any of the admins, but grunts were swarming the place like Beedrill. In addition, a Steelix was rampaging around, taking out the grunts' pokemon one after another.
"Keep it up Steelix! You can do it!" a voice commanded. We looked towards the origin of the voice. It was Riley!
Steelix was obviously at a much higher level than the grunts' pokemon. It was having little trouble dealing with them. The problem was that it was vastly outnumbered. A group of Graveler were charging at Steelix from behind. Steelix wouldn't be able to react in time.
"Rotom, hydro pump!" I yelled. Rotom fired a powerful blast of water at the Graveler. All of them were knocked out.
"Ren?!" Riley gasped, finally noticing us. He then cracked a smile. "Thanks for the assist."
"No problem" I replied with a grin.
"Don't celebrate just yet punks!" yelled the grunt who seemed to be in charge. He threw out a pokeball and a Gliscor appeared. It stood on the cave floor with its powerful tail and let out a powerful roar.
"Not bad huh?" laughed the head grunt. "I got this bad boy straight from headquarters. It'll pound you losers into the dust!"
"Bring it on!" Misaki yelled.
"Wait Misaki. Let me take him on." Riley said. Misaki took a couple of seconds before nodding.
"Fine. I'll take you down first." smirked the head grunt.
Riley was the first to call out a move. "Steelix, use iron tail!" Steelix's tail lit up with a metallic glow and smashed into the ground. However, Gliscor was able to dodge it as it jumped into the air and flew around.
"Rock smash!" the grunt ordered. Gliscor's claw lit up and smashed into Steelix, dealing a large amount of damage. They both called out their next moves simultaneously.
"Crunch!"
"Fire fang!"
Gliscor's fangs became veiled in an aura of flames and charged at Steelix. Steelix however, dodged the attack and attacked Gliscor from behind with its own fangs.
"Ram it into the ground with dig!" Riley commanded. Steelix drove into the ground with Gliscor. When it came up, it threw Gliscor into the wall. Gliscor had about 5% hp left.
"Finish it with iron tail!" Riley continued. Steelix got ready to end it. However, several threads shot out of nowhere and immobilized Steelix. The origin were several bug pokemon commanded by a group of grunts that now came into view.
"What?!" Riley gasped.
"Did you really expect me to play fair?" the grunt laughed. "Now it's time to end this!"
"You cowards!" Misaki yelled. "Don't you have any pride?!"
"Who cares? Winning is what counts." the grunt smirked. He turned his gaze towards the other grunts. "Get those brats." he ordered, pointing at us.
"Finally. Time to kick some ass!" Misaki yelled. We both called out attacks.
"Empoleon, metal claw!"
"Infernape, thunder punch!"
Our pokemon charged in and attacked, but were intercepted by the horde of pokemon the grunts had. We couldn't help Riley. Or so I thought.
"Riolu, force palm!" Clair cried out. Riolu jumped over the grunts' pokemon that were occupied by Misaki and me, and charged at Gliscor. Gliscor was knocked straight down and lost what little hp it had left. It shattered apart like glass. The head grunt was caught completely off guard. So was I, to be honest.
"You little brat!" the head grunt yelled. "Get her!"
As the group of grunts sent their pokemon at Clair, Riolu jumped in between them. It then let out a powerful cry and became veiled in a blinding light.
"Riolu? What's going on?" Clair gasped.
"It's evolving." I explained. "The bond between you two must have gotten strong enough."
As I finished explaining, Riolu's evolution finished. The light dispersed and Lucario took the place of Riolu.
"Wow! Riolu, you look so cool now!" Clair exclaimed.
"It's called Lucario now Clair." I explained.
"Oops... my bad." Clair giggled.
"Riolu, Lucario. Who cares?!" the head grunt yelled. "Get her!"
After quickly checking her menu to see Lucario's new moves, she called out an attack.
"Lucario, bone rush!"
A long bone manifested from Lucario's hands. It charged at the mob of pokemon the grunts commanded and took them out like it was nothing. The grunts ran away with their tails between their legs.
"Awesome! Lucario, that was amazing!" Clair cheered as she ran to Lucario's side.
We all ran over to Clair's side to congratulate her on her incredible victory. Suddenly we heard a low moan. We turned to see the head grunt staring at us.
"Hello! I'm still hear you know!" he complained.
"Oh right... you... why are you still here?" Misaki asked.
"Oh come on! Aren't you the least bit scared of me?!" he yelled. In response, we all turned to each other and burst out laughing.
"What?! Why you little bunch of..."
"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you." Riley interrupted.
"Why not?" the grunt asked. In response, he heard a low growl. He turned around and came face to face with Steelix.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" he cried out, running away.
"Well he was... interesting." Misaki laughed.
Soon after, a window popped up saying we completed the quest to evolve Riolu. We didn't get any other reward other than Lucario. It didn't bother us though. Lucario was a rare pokemon, so it was all the reward we needed.
Afterwards we got out of the cave, left Iron Island, and continued our journey.
A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Look forward to next week.